At Sardis, we take beliefs seriously.

But we also recognize that people come with questions, different experiences, different backgrounds and different levels of certainty.

You do not need to understand everything we believe—or agree with everything—to spend time with us.

We invite you to explore, ask questions, open Scripture with us and discover why these things matter in everyday life.

Jesus is at the centre of our faith.

When we want to understand what God is like, we look at Jesus.

We see him welcoming people, noticing those others overlooked, sharing meals, healing, forgiving, challenging injustice and religious hypocrisy, and giving himself for others.

His death and resurrection are at the heart of our hope.

Following Jesus means more to us than believing things about him. We want his life to shape how we treat people, use our resources, respond to suffering and live in our community.

The story of Scripture begins with a Creator bringing life into being and calling it good.

At the heart of that story is a God whose character is love.

We do not believe God forces people into relationship.

Love requires freedom.

That means questions, choices and even doubt are part of being human. We believe God continues to seek people with patience, grace and compassion.

The Bible is foundational to our faith.

It is an ancient collection of writings created across many centuries, cultures and circumstances, yet together it tells an extraordinary story of God and humanity.

We read it to understand Jesus, to listen for God’s voice and to learn wisdom for living.

Taking Scripture seriously also means taking the work of understanding it seriously—its history, language, context, poetry, stories and the questions it continues to raise.

We don’t expect everyone who joins a conversation at Sardis to arrive at the same place or at the same speed.

We keep learning together.

The Seventh-day in our name matters.

From Friday evening to Saturday evening, we practice Sabbath.

Sabbath reaches back to the Creation story, where God stops and delights in what has been made.

For us it is a weekly reminder that:

life is a gift,

people are worth more than what they produce,

rest is not laziness,

creation deserves our care,

and there should always be room for relationship, worship, wonder and delight.

In a culture that continually tells us to do more, acquire more and become more, Sabbath gives us permission to stop.

We do not separate spiritual life from the rest of being human.

Bodies matter.

Minds matter.

Relationships matter.

Food, rest, movement, emotional wellbeing, community and spirituality all belong together.

That is why Seventh-day Adventists have historically placed strong emphasis on health, hospitals, education and whole-person care.

We believe caring for human life is part of following Jesus.

Faith cannot be forced.

Seventh-day Adventists have long defended religious liberty—not only for ourselves, but for people whose beliefs differ from ours.

We believe every person should have the freedom to seek truth, practice faith, change their beliefs, or choose not to belong to a religious community.

That matters in an increasingly diverse Fraser Valley.

We can live alongside people of different religions and people with no religion, treating one another with dignity while still speaking openly about what we believe.

We take grief and death seriously.

We do not believe those who die become spirits watching or troubling the living. Scripture describes death as a sleep while we await resurrection.

Our hope is not that human beings escape the earth forever.

Our hope is resurrection.

Jesus was raised from the dead, and we believe death itself will ultimately be defeated.

The other half of our name—Adventist—points toward the coming of Jesus.

We believe history is going somewhere.

War, exploitation, injustice, disease, loneliness, environmental destruction and death are not simply realities humanity must learn to accept forever.

Scripture ends with the remarkable picture of a new heaven and a new earth.

God dwelling with humanity.

Tears wiped away.

Death gone.

Creation restored.

What was broken made whole.

This is not merely hope for another place someday.

It changes how we want to live here now.

If God intends restoration, then healing matters now.

If God intends peace, peacemaking matters now.

If God intends justice, how we treat people matters now.

If God intends a renewed creation, how we care for this creation matters now.

Sabbath reminds us where the story began.

Advent reminds us where the story is going.

We live between Creation and New Creation with hope.

Belief should change the way we live.

It should make us more compassionate, not more judgmental.

More curious, not more frightened of questions.

More generous.

More attentive to people who are overlooked.

More willing to forgive.

More concerned about injustice.

More responsible for the world entrusted to us.

We are not claiming that we do all of this perfectly.

We are learning.

Seventh-day Adventists have a much fuller statement of beliefs covering God, humanity, salvation, church, daily life and the restoration of all things.

Some of those ideas are simple.

Others deserve time, Scripture, conversation and plenty of questions.

If you want to go deeper, we would rather explore them with you than simply hand you a list.

Ask us a question. Join a conversation. Open the Bible with us.

Or, if you would like to read the complete official statement:

[READ THE 28 FUNDAMENTAL BELIEFS]

You don’t have to resolve every question before you come.

Sometimes faith begins with curiosity.

Sometimes with friendship.

Sometimes with a meal.

Sometimes with a question you have been carrying for years.

There is room for your questions here.